OCZ Releases SSD Toolbox For SandForce Equipped SSDs

OCZ has just released a Toolbox for their SandForce equipped drives and its available through the OCZ Technology Forums here. A big kudos also has to go out to the Forum Support Manager, RyderOCZ, for taking the time to put together a great thread which lays out the toolbox utilities with some great graphics.

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In reading the thread, the Toolbox appears to be a complete package. It includes complete drive identification including SMART data, firmware updating and the ability to complete a ‘secure erase’ the drive as well as returning it to its factory default settings.

For those that jumped in quick to install the new Intel RST 10 release on their systems, you are going to have to downgrade before using the Toolbox as official word is that the Toolbox will not work with RST 10.

Its a sheer coincidence that this Toolbox was released right on the heels of our interview with Kent Smith, Senior Director of Product Marketing at SandForce, where he stated that SandForce had supplied this Toolbox to manufacturers and the opportunity was there for each to make it available to their customers.  A conversation with Corsair earlier this week, however, revealed that they too had the toolbox but had not received clear direction on its distribution.

Way to go SandForce and OCZ!

EDIt: We are not aware if this Toolbox works on other SandForce drives and do not recommend the consumer experiment with such. It wasn’t so long ago that Crucial released its firmware update for TRIM on its Samsung rebadged drives and many thought they would install it on their Samsung SSDs, only to learn that their Samsung SSDs would no longer work.